Gentlemen don't sail to windward

Earlier in the year whilst planning our holiday for August on
the boat I hit upon the idea of using some of the free visitor nights from MDL
to leave the boat in the Solent until we could get down and head for the south
west I had also mentioned this to Barry Gardiner some months ago who kindly
offered to crew once we had firmed up the dates. As we got closer to the
planned departure I had begun to look at the forecasts and it wasn't looking
too hopeful as it was showing the typical constant west or southwest winds.

We decided to bite the bullet in the end and take our
chances, so Thursday afternoon Sharon and I met Barry, Sue and her 2 very well behaved Granddaughters on
the boat who quite happily sat in the cockpit while the big people drank tea,
after which we said goodbye to Sue and the children. Barry Sharon and myself
decided it was time to have dinner so we popped round to the Dockside centre
and experienced the culinary delights of the new Zippers Restaurant, we all
liked the food we ordered and the price was quite reasonable ( contrary
to what I had heard ). After dinner Sharon went home and Barry and I returned
to the boat where we promptly slipped our lines and headed for Stangate for the
night where we anchored overnight to get a good start with the tide in the
morning. Charisse was also anchored as they were headed for the Hamble prior to
returning for the Ramsgate Regatta.

The next day we managed to leave an hour or so before high
water at Sheerness so we had plenty of time in hand, the plan was to stay
overnight at Dover, Brighton then onto Chichester on the third day. We motored
most of the way down to hook spit which we cleared with over 2.5 meters of
water under my 1.5 metre keel.

We then managed to get some sailing in with a reasonably
light southerly wind as far as North Foreland where as we turned the gentle
breeze turned into what seemed like a full blown gale although it was a mere 20
knots, we tacked back and forth for a while and decided that Ramsgate would be
a better alternative as we (me mainly) didn't fancy
much more of this punishment, as we entered the harbour we could see that Charisse
had made the same decision and was also heading in, they had endured it longer than
we had as they had came down via the Princes Channel although they had left
some time after us.

We eventually managed to find a mooring amongst the large
number of Dutch boats without too much of a fuss, a short while later Andy
& Janet arrived bearing gifts in the form of bottles of beer which we all
proceeded to drink in Cathala's Cockpit along with a fair amount of Barry's
bottle of Rum that he had brought along.

The following day the forecast was just the same and maybe a
little stronger so we decided to sail inshore along the Ramsgate channel down
to Dover which in all honesty was just enough, although the weather was very
nice eventually the wind did pick up at one point I did wonder if we were
heading for ice creams on the beach at Deal!

Not long after leaving Ramsgate Barry decided to put out my
trolling fishing line and after a further 20 minutes the device came to the surface
with a nice juicy Mackerel attached to the feathers!

As we headed for Dover a couple of waves managed to dump themselves
on top of poor old Barry in the cockpit but as a seasoned salty he dealt with
it admirably as I laughed it off for him! After a while a large white yacht appeared off our stern and
came reasonably close before tacking back out towards the channel, think he was
just saying hello...Barry had a few choice words for him!

Now there seemed to be a difference of opinion regarding the
wind strength, my hand held speed indicator showed an average speed of 28 knots
with a maximum of 33 knots which I felt was quite strong, Barry's reply was
it's no more than a 4 maybe a 5, but certainly no more I am sure this was
just Barry preventing me from worrying.

We eventually started to close on the Port's eastern entrance
as a couple ferries went in and out, we were about 150 meters off the harbour
wall when we were asked by port control to wait outside for a ferry to exit
before entering the harbour, as I mentioned the wind was fairly strong and
there was a swell outside the entrance which made it all very interesting but
we eventually managed to get in and find a berth in the tidal marina where
Barry cooked the earlier caught Mackerel which tasted very nice.

The next morning we left hoping to reach Brighton with the
option of continuing through the night if we managed to find a favourable wind,
unfortunately the wind stayed in the south west so it was more motor sailing or
tacking to windward but the weather was mostly bright with a few showers,
passing Dungerness we came across a few pods of porpoises on the point that
seemed to be feeding and the beach was littered with fishermen.

Once passed Hastings we decided that Eastbourne would be the
destination and I started to think that Chichester would be one of those places
that I was never going to see....never the less we finished the day with a
further 4 Mackerel which Barry cooked up along with a rather chunky
chilli-con-carne soup for starters, I told Barry several times on this trip
that he would make someone a wonderful wife!

Barry remained positive and we planned to make a very early
start the following day and punch through to Chichester come hell or high
water! We managed to make the 6.00 lock out from the marina and actually got
out at 6.30, the sun was shining as we motor sailed down towards Beachy Head
and passed the seven sisters all was well as the race was on to make the Looe
Channel in time before the tide turned.

Once round Beachy Head we managed to sail a course just a tad
south of west but knew it wasn't going to be enough to get us down to the
channel so we rolled up the Genoa and motor sailed south until we were opposite
the East Cardinal marking the channel, at this point I was concerned that we
didn't have enough time to get through the channel and floated the idea of
continuing south to the Owers to play it safe, Barry as always was fairly sure
that we wouldn't have a problem but was happy with whatever I wanted to do, I
eventually managed to summon some Dutch courage and we cranked the engine up as
much as we dare and headed for the channel, I felt a little better to see two
other yachts behind who seemed to be heading in the same direction.

We were now pinching the wind with the mainsail and the
engine going hell for leather in order to get as much speed as possible so as
to get through before the dreaded tide turned against us, the wind was around
20-25 knots which seemed to be producing some quite choppy seas which
occasionally got us wet but we were doing well....then disaster struck! Barry
was the first to sense that the exhaust was sounding dry and I leant over the
stern to see steam coming from the exhaust, the engine was quickly turned off
before any alarms came on and I started to check for problems. I removed the
strainer from the seacock to find there was little water coming through which
seemed to be just due to the angle of heel and obviously not enough for the
speed at which the old girl was running. We were almost through and Barry
unfurled a few rolls of the Genoa and we managed to sail a course just north of
the red and green buoys which got us safely out of the channel.

What a relief! we dropped the main and started the downwind
leg towards Chichester Harbour with just the Genoa set, this was the next
problem, it was looking like we would arrive at the bar around 1 hour after low
water and we were unsure if it would be safe to cross that early with the sea's
we were experiencing so we tried to slow her by rolling up some of the Genoa
but we were still managing 3.5 knots, we noticed a couple of yachts heading
towards Chichester so Barry hit upon the idea of calling them up and extracting
some local information which one offered gladly, we slowly crossed the bar and
followed the shallow channel round into Sparkes Marina where Sharon had been
waiting patiently for us on the pontoon. Mission accomplished.

Gentlemen don't sail to windward and Make sure you have
plenty of tide to get through the Looe Channel advice given by another salty
seadog namely Mr Tony Chamberlin, Tony I didn't ignore your advice, it
was all Barry's Fault, he made me do it!

In all seriousness, again I owe a big thank you to Barry and
Sue for all their help and advice.